A LATERAL VIEW: Essays on Culture and...

A LATERAL VIEW: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan by Donald Richie (Stone Bridge Press: $10.95). A resident of Japan for over 45 years, Richie has developed rare insights into its unique culture. The subjects of his gracefully written essays range from the Japanese concept of time (which he argues is more typically Asian than Western) to the mania for the pinball-like game pachinko (in 1986, the Japanese spent more than twice as much in pachinko parlors as they did on VCR’s.) Richie contrasts the monumental permanence to which Western builders aspire with the planned obsolescence of Japanese architecture, comparing Tokyo to “an international exposition which has remained standing.” But he looks beyond the apparent disorder of the capitol and asserts that the city is actually an enormous cluster of small, individual neighborhoods that mirror traditional villages.